How Do You Tell the Children?

"He wanted to straighten out the facts, because he didn`t want rumors," said Annie Kan, a freshman. "It was sort of stressful for some kids."

Teachers across the nation found themselves grasping for words Tuesday to reassure students that they were not in danger and try to explain the surreal attacks in New York City, and in Washington where a hijacked jetliner plowed into the Pentagon.

In suburban Howard County, Md., outside Washington D.C., Lynda Mitic, the principal at Centennial High School, took to the school`s public address system and warned of "a national crisis." But she assured the students "we are confident that you are safe."

"I think that all of us felt very unsafe today," Mitic said in an interview. "It didn`t matter where we were, because we didn`t know if a plane was going to fall out of the sky."

Teachers across the country expressed the difficulty of reassuring their students.

"I honestly don`t think that any of us is prepared to deal with the horrors that occurred today, whether we`re parents or teachers," said Mary Reece, principal of Menlo Park Elementary School in Edison, a half-hour drive from the rubble that once was New York`s tallest towers.

"It`s not as if we can pull anything from our memory banks to deal with this kind of crisis," Reece continued. She said most likely someone in her school lost a loved one in the devastation.

A group of school children in Sarasota, Fla., learned of the attacks firsthand from President Bush, who was reading to students when an aide whispered the news into his ear.

As students returned to their classrooms Wednesday, Schools nationwide were preparing to counsel them.

"There are going to be a lot of angry kids, and we need to help them understand that it`s O.K. to experience the anger, but not to act it out," said Susan Gorin, executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists. "As a country, we`ve never experienced this."

Gorin and others suggested that schools explain what happened as clearly as possible, providing only those details that seem appropriate to children at each age. They should also give students ample opportunity to ask questions – sometimes the same questions, over and over again.

"They`re trying to make sense out of a senseless situation," said Danny Mize, executive director of The Kids` Place, a support center for grieving children and families that grew out of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.

Several experts said schools should give students the chance to write or draw pictures about their feelings, whether on large message murals hung in a hallway or on individual pictures.

"We shouldn`t mask our feelings from the kids," Mize said. "If we`re sad and crying, don`t go off to a bedroom and then put on a brave face for the kids. We need them to know that we`ve been affected by it too."

Gorin said schools can help children by sending letters and pictures to victims` families. And, she said, teachers should try to get students back to their normal schedules as soon as possible.

Adults should also limit exposure to TV images of the attacks, Mize said. "We need to be aware that while we`re getting all of those details, the kids are too," he said.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)